Garza Revolution

The main authors of the correspondence were Captain

Intelligence gathering was poor; Mexican civilians employed as guides were known for being unreliable because of their sympathies with the rebels, as were local peasants the army encountered. The Mexican Army suffered from the same problems as the Americans, leading Bourke to recommend to his superiors that all field commanders speak Spanish so as to better communicate with Mexican authorities and citizens, rather than rely on the guides. The United States Army also employed 35 Black Seminole Scouts, from Fort Clark, Texas Rangers and local sheriffs to help track the Garzistas. One of the first battles was fought along the banks of the Rio Grande at San Ygnacio, on December 26, during which a large force of rebels opened fire from the Texas side of the river onto Mexican troops on the other side. The engagement was a long range one and according to an American newspaper correspondent, one Mexican soldier was killed and several people were wounded on both sides.^[4][5]

1892

The first campaign occurred between September 1891 and April 1892, by the end of which the Mexican and American militaries were successful in suppressing the rebellion and forcing Garza into hiding in Texas. On January 19, Captain George F. Chase confirmed the weakness of the Garzista forces when he reported the capture of Frank Garza, a relative of Catarino Garza. Frank Garza told Chase that he had served with the rebels for about a month but abandoned them because he was "poorly fed" and "paid nothing." Frank also said that "very few men remained with Catarino Garza." The first engagement involving the Americans was just over a week later, on January 31, when three men from the 3rd Cavalry came across a group of rebels. During the ensuing gunfight, one American, mentioned in records only as Glover, was killed and the two others were able to escape. Captain Chase wrote on February 3 that the men were ambushed at a canyon shaped like a cul-de-sac, adding; "it was a terrible place, it is a wonder that any of them got away." About the same time, the Americans learned that, because of their patrolling and the capture of several key leaders, the rebels had broken up into small groups of between two and 10 men. The closest the 3rd Cavalry came to catching Garza came on February 18, 1892, when Captain Chase was searching the home of Garza's father-in-law, Alejandro Gonzales. According to a letter from Captain Bourke dated March 2, 1892, Chase found what he thought to be Garza's shoeprint leading away from Gonzales' house, but heavy rains helped the rebel escape. Fighting did not resume until December, but Garza was no longer leading the rebels. Instead, they were led by the rancher Francisco Benavides.^[4]

In November 1892, Benavides signed and issued a proclamation to the people along the international border. The proclamation read in part; "We have appealed to reason and he [Porfirio Diaz] has not listened to us; we have appealed to patriotism and he has despised us; let us, therefore, rush to the last recourse which remains to us. Our end is noble, since it contemplates the restoration of our liberty besmirched and defiled by the tyrants of

On December 10, Benavides led 131 mounted rebels in a surprise attack on the village of San Ygnacio, Coahuila, opposite of

Benavides was one of the first prisoners taken by the Americans during the second campaign. On January 21, 1893, a squad from the 3rd Cavalry, under Lieutenant J. T. Dickman, arrested Benavides and another leader named Prudencio Gonzales without a fight on the Mexican side of the border. A day later, Lieutenant Dickman came across Cecilio Eschevarria who put up a "sharp fight" but was ultimately captured. On the same day, a rebel named Maximo Martinez, who participated in the San Ygnacio raid, surrendered to a local sheriff. The final engagement of the war to involve the Americans occurred on February 23 in Starr County. According to General Wheaton, Lieutenant P. G. Lowe, 18th Infantry, was out scouting with a former sheriff named Washington Shely and two Black Seminoles when they came across Las Muias Ranch, held by "the most desperate of all the bandits", Eusabio Martinez, alias Mangas de Agua. Another skirmish ensued and ended with Martinez dead. By March 1893, the war was basically over. Captain Henry Jackson, 7th Cavalry, wrote; "The idea of any Revolution against Mexico is gone, but there are some 50 or 60 still out who are implicated in the San Ignacio raid, without money or food and who, on account of this extradition business, and in some cases civil processes, are afraid to surrender; these men are in the brush, roaming from place to place, stopping no 2 days at any one and will simply have to be hunted down. This can be done better I think by a few Seminoles and the Shelys with his deputies than any other way.... Since my last letter Rafael Nielo and Esperantis Ortiz have surrendered here and others are expected today."^[4][6]

The United States Army continued making arrests of suspected rebels from April to August, but after September, the scouting operations had ceased. General Wheaton reported the capture of 132 individuals during the second campaign, 86 of whom were found to have participated in the massacre at San Ygnacio and 71 of them were convicted in an American court. Wheaton said; "I regret that under our laws more severe punishment can not be given the leaders of such an unlawful raid and brutal massacre as that of December 10 last. Possibly after they have served the sentences awarded by our courts the extradition by Mexico of those guilty of murder and similar crimes may be effected."^[4][6]

See also

• Yaqui Uprising
• Mexican Border War
• Bandit War
• List of wars involving Mexico

References

• United States (1895). US Congressional serial set. United States Government Printing Office.
• Margolies, Daniel S. (2011). Spaces of Law in American Foreign Relations: Extradition and Extraterritoriality in the Borderlands and Beyond, 1877-1898. University of Georgia Press.
  ISBN 978-0-8203-3092-1
  .